JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser to utilize the functionality of this website.

Winter Blog

Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:53:00 Europe/London

Winter, Diss and Waveney.

So it's June already where did the winter go?!.. For me I had a good winter, managed to stay injury free and as the weather was pretty mild a decent amount of cycling. A couple of local duathlons and a half marathon kept me focused. The main news of the winter has to be the upgrade to the new Boardman Air 9.8. What a great bike, as you may be aware at TriHarder, James now does the Retul bike fits, well worth it. I’ve been able to get a lot more aerodynamic and further forward so I can get over the pedals anf put more power through the cranks. Also my lower back pain has disappeared.

April arrived and it was time for the Diss Duathlon, back to the early morning race day starts it was... Although this year it was a mild 8 deg c not -5 deg c as it was last year. First job was to set up the TriHarder stand (we were a bit rusty). Once we had set up I went off to register, James went to find chairs, Ben ate and Simon moaned about James sitting down. Transition... Pretty easy for a Duathlon.

I didn't really have too many expectations for the race, maybe just to improve on last year’s result. I was off in Wave 2 at 9.35. For the 1st half of the run myself, Piers Arnold and Ryan Ostler ran together, coming back into Diss, Piers pulled away and Ryan and I continued running together. Onto the bike I soon caught Piers, Ryan came passed me but never really got away, I feel I could have gone a bit harder on the bike but also knew if I raced hard on the bike Ryan would always catch me on the run. I kept a gap behind Ryan just so I could see him, the bike stayed like that till the last lap when Karl Free caught us but never got away and we all came into transition together.

Onto the last run... 5k of hard racing left. I tried to race clever instead of going eye balls out and blowing up... I was happy to sit behind Ryan and let him set the pace, Karl was holding good pace a few hundred metres back for 3rd. Ryan is a very strong runner and I knew I couldn't run away from him and was pleased to even stick with him, hopefully that's where taking it a little easier on the bike helped. I left it till 500m to go to try a sprint, I went passed Ryan but he wasn't having any of it he sprinted as well... 1hr 27min 31sec of racing and there was 2 seconds between us.

Ryan won with me 2nd.

A great race. I exceeded the little expectations I had of the day by a country mile. Even better, 6 minutes quicker over the same course as last year. Maybe these Duathlons aren't that bad after all ;)

Waveney was upon me and to be honest I wasn't that hyped about it, it is a tough time of year for me being a busy time at work and struggling to fit some decent training in. I just came into the race thinking it will be what it will.

Knowing that Joe Skipper was racing I knew that I wouldn't be racing for 1st, Matt Ellis was also making an appearance, but knowing he had Yokohama the next week I didn't think he was unbeatable, I did my usual and registered early so I could get started earlier and save hanging around. It was not a day for hanging around, cold, wet and windy! I have worked a lot on my swimming over the winter so was hoping for a quicker time than previous years.

I posted a swim time of 5.10 so I was happy with that. On the bike it was just ride hard but play it safe, it's a pretty technical bike course around the back part of the course and to spice it up wet slippery roads and a nice cross wind but never the less I pulled out an even quicker bike time that last year! Onto the run in all honesty I didn't feel great and I'm not surprised as my run training had been very on and off in the few weeks leading up to Waveney. After all that I got a PB and finished 3rd behind Joe and Matt.

It has taken me awhile to fit in writing this blog but weare now into June and Fritton lake is the weekend coming up. I'm feeling good, training well and looking forward to getting the open water racing season started!